Comixology announced that it would be giving away almost 700 free issues at the South by Southwest conference in Austin. In the last 48 hours since the comics have been available, the company’s systems have been crashing and many customers are unable to even log into the system. This normally wouldn’t be a big problem, but the free #1 issues are only available until March 12th 2013, which means the vast majority of comic lovers won’t be able to download anything at all.
The main idea behind the free first issues will be to encourage people to buy second issues. Most of the comics available are older, but you can find some great things if you can get to them. We have found through our own experiences that the app suffers the most on iOS and Android. The best solution is to directly access the webpage, get the goods from there, and it will then be automatically synced to your account. Unfortunately, due to the demand the company has paused the ability to download all the free issues, with no word on when they will reinstate it again.
David Steinberge, the CEO and co-founder of ComiXology, released the following statement just now: “It’s been a whirlwind weekend and comiXology is fresh from SXSW, where we talked about some exciting things. We had believed ourselves prepared—but unfortunately we became overwhelmed by the immense response. We’re still struggling to keep our systems up. The result is that you aren’t getting your comics when and where you want. We don’t like letting you down. Our teams are working around the clock to resolve these issues so that you can have the experience you’ve come to expect. We’ll be communicating with you as often as we can and deeply appreciate the outpouring of support we’ve seen from our customers while we right the ship.”
Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.